Lord Kitchener has been pleased to say that than the young Australian there is no finer fighting material in the world. But the comprehensiveness of his report…makes abundantly clear…our appalling feebleness.

The name Royal Hotel…passes unnoticed and ungrowled at, even by Bush republicans. The Royal Hotel at Bourke was kept by an Irishman, one O'Donohoo, who was Union to the backbone.

Henry Lawson, Lord Douglas, 1901

Introduction

The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act received the royal assent on 9 July 1900 and it was proclaimed that, on the first day of the twentieth century, the six Australian colonies would be united as a federal commonwealth under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia.

The new nation was born with no visible symbols of statehood and without having faced any of the ordeals which have often welded a people together in common purpose. Just thirteen years later Australia faced its great trial in the terrible conflict of the First World War. The First World War tested both the states' commitment to nationhood and the nation's ties to the Empire.

This exhibition explores the first two decades of the 20th century. It shows some of the events, personalities, customs, sacrifices and symbolism associated with Federation. These forces shaped Australia.

The Australian nation came to know itself.

Over 330,000 Australians served overseas in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) during the First World War.

When the AIF first sailed it left a nation that did not yet know itself. Many an Australian had no confidence in the capacity of his people for any big enterprise. They were still six colonies rather than a single federated nation.

And then, the people in Australia looked on from afar at three hundred thousand of their own… struggling amongst millions from the strongest and most progressive peoples of Europe and America. They saw their own men … flash across the world's consciousness like a shooting star. The Australian nation came to know itself.
C.E.W Bean, Australia in the war of 1914-18